EyeView's Blog

Trust Indicators and Conversion

One of the repeated themes from the Conversion Conference last week in San Jose, was the importance of displaying your trust indicators prominently on your landing page.

Trust indicators are the visual clues you can use to let your site visitors see that you can be trusted. If your conversion involves some kind of financial transaction, you want to show that you have the highest levels of financial protection. If you’re collecting data, you want to demonstrate that your site is secure and your visitors’ data will be kept private. If you’re promising to deliver something, you want to express your commitment to service and punctuality.

In their New York Times bestselling book Trust Agents, Chris Brogan and Julien Smith write about the importance of trust as a commodity that can be shared, lent and borrowed. In addition to the kinds of security and integrity indicators, I mentioned above you should also borrow trust from your valued customers by adding their logos to your site. When your visitors see the logos of other trusted brands on your site they are most likely to trust you.

So far, so simple. Trust indicators have been tested on many sites and they have been shown to boost conversion in many cases.

As far as the authority borrowed from existing customers goes, I’m totally on board. As a consumer or a responsible buyer for a company, I can see why using the logos of big brand companies is a persuasive tool in convincing me to purchase. If it’s good enough for [fill in the name of a company you admire here] then it should be good enough for me. I get it.

But the security icons leave me a little cold. I’m a sophisticated browser. I feel confident about finding the results I want through search. I believe I can discern whether or not a company trying to sell me something is trustworthy or not based on the language they use and the images they present. I don’t believe that if any of those indicators gave me pause that it would be an image of a padlock that set me straight. I’m also not convinced that any symbol of security would help me overcome serious misgivings I might have about an online provider’s ability to deliver on its promises.

Leaving aside my personal prejudices, I still want to determine whether either of these kinds of trust icons have a place in conversion videos. Is there something more persuasive about animation with a voiceover which makes the flat representation of a security icon irrelevant? Should the corporate logos of your customers scroll through a video or should each one be animated as it would be on its own site? At what point does the “borrowed trust” of someone else’s logo become a distraction rather than a trust indicator and an aid to conversion?

Of course, I don’t have answers to all these questions right now. But you can be sure we will be running more tests with video trust indicators in the future.

Conversion Optimization - Opinion or Science?

I have always thought it would be fun to be a consultant. I’ve got opinions, plenty of them. You name a subject and I can give you my opinion on it. I’m good like that. It’s a useful skill in conversation. I’m much in demand for dinner parties. I can say something semi-intelligent on a broad range of topics. I have an ever-expanding stream of anecdotes that I can apply to bolster my point of view. I am, like many others, a seething cauldron of eloquent subjectivity.

But that all stops when I get to the office. When we talk about optimizing conversion with our customers, we don’t bring a bunch of stories and best-case scenarios. We bring evidence – data captured from live traffic – that proves objectively what is happening for that customer on that landing page with that traffic from those sources.

Furthermore, we don’t rest on our laurels. We encourage our customers to ask “What have you done for me lately?” and we push ourselves to provide an answer. We do this because optimization of your site’s conversion rate is not a one-time cure.

Causing an increase or improvement is easy enough. If a picture is hung at a crooked angle, anybody can nudge it and improve on what there was before. Getting it perfectly straight requires something more. It requires measurement and testing. Getting it perfectly straight when the wall and perhaps the whole house is rocking from side to side requires planning.

There’s little room for subjectivity and opinion when it comes to optimization. If you want to ensure that your landing page is always performing in the most effective way, you need someone to build a plan that draws on the classic Scientific Method's cycle of hypothesis, experiment and conclusion, repeated for as long as necessary.

So, when you talk about optimizing conversion, are you giving your opinion or looking at the latest results of a scientific test?

Great Resources for Conversion Optimization

People are always asking me what (and who) I read to keep up professionally, so I thought it was time for a post highlighting some of the most useful sources of information I turn to regularly to keep me up to day with the world.

Due to the nature of our EyeView’s business I find my blog reading time split evenly between content that is focused on conversion and optimization and commentary on the latest developments in online video and video advertising. So will split this post into two and deal with each area separately

So here is a list of the top 5 go-to reads for conversion and optimization. For each I’ll list a URL and Twitter ID where appropriate.

The best introduction you can have to the world of conversion is Bryan Eisenberg. Eisenberg is published all over the place, but is blogging regularly now at BryanEisenberg.com. There is very little in the world of optimization that Bryan hasn’t already written about, but you can be sure he always finds a fresh topic for his meaty posts. In addition to his work online, Bryan has co-authored two of the most informative books I have ever referred to – Always Be Testing and Waiting For Your Cat To Bark? Bryan tweets as @TheGrok.

The guys at Conversion Rate Experts don’t blog as regularly as I would like them to, but when they do, you can bet they have something weighty to say. With offices in London and New York, this team of conversion consultants have built their reputation on making a difference for some high-profile customers. They are definitely worth listening to.  

Brian Massey has cleverly dubbed himself The Conversion Scientist. It’s a great title, but it wouldn’t be worth anything if he didn’t back it up regularly with some real science. You can follow Brian on Twitter where he is @bmassey.

Raquel Hirsch and Chris Goward at Wider Funnel put out consistently great material that always offers food for thought and usually a practical way to apply that thought. Chris publishes a daily conversion optimization tip on Twitter as @chrisgoward and Raquel moderates a number of conversion optimization groups on LinkedIn.

 My last entry for now is a bit of a cheat. SEOmoz doesn’t focus too hard on conversion optimization, but the sheer breadth and volume of quality content that is posted there means that they are host to some of the best and most informative discussions on the subject. You can follow the SEOmoz twitter stream here and pick through the SEO stuff for some conversion optimization gems.

Brits Vs. Yanks - A Conversion True Story

There seems to be some debate about who said it first, but whether it was Oscar Wilde or George Bernard Shaw the quip still holds true that England and America are “two countries separated by a common language.”

But even when the language is the same, the accent used to express it can vary widely, and our response to that variation may impact our willingness to listen to the message being delivered.

We have long been interested in testing the impact of different accents. We usually do not change the content of a video for British or American audiences, but the accent in the voiceover is a different matter entirely.

Ginger Software markets a product aimed at improving your written English. It identifies spelling and grammar errors and is particularly useful for students, people with learning difficulties, such as dyslexia, and business people for whom English is a second language. Once we had proven that the inclusion of video on Ginger’s site increased their conversion rate, we decided to test whether there was a difference in conversion when the audience heard an American or a British accent delivering the voiceover. Given that the product is tied so closely to people’s perception of correct English, we thought this would be real grudge match between two great nations. And the results didn’t disappoint.

We ran an A/B test where 50% of the global audience saw the video with a voiceover in a British accent and 50% saw it with the voiceover performed with an American accent. The conversion goal for each version of the video was to get visitors to download Ginger’s software.

Looking at the global population, we saw that the British voiceover was 4% more effective at converting visitors into downloaders. On its own, that would be interesting enough, but we wanted to look further into what was happening in each country.

It seems that the often-heard comment by Americans that things sound smarter with a British accent actually translates into action. For US audiences, the conversion rate for the British accent was 5.5% higher than the American one – above the global average. In Canada, the British accent still outperformed the American, but by a mere 1.5%.

Irish viewers watching the British version converted 12% more often than those hearing an American voice while the response of the Australians was even more extreme. Viewers “down under” converted 32% more often when pitched with Pommie tones than with an American twang.

The Brits didn’t have it all their own way. In India, the American accent was 12% more effective at converting visitors. But the most surprising statistic of all came when we looked at the comparative performance of the two accents in the UK. For audiences watching the video in the UK, the voiceover with the American accent was 8% more effective at making visitors download Ginger’s software than the British accent, representing a significant swing away from the global trend. This was a wonderfully counter-intuitive response to the test that really drives home the importance of knowing your audience and optimizing your video geographically to ensure you get the best results.

There is nothing to say that the results obtained here would be replicated for other videos on other sites, but there is no denying the value of testing to ensure you get the maximum revenue from your traffic wherever it comes from.

When A/B Tests Attack!

We went back to one of our most successful optimization projects to see if we could further improve on the high standards we had already set.

Previously we had embedded a landing page video for TutorVista and experienced tremendous success. With clear confirmation that the video was key to boosting their conversion we decided to experiment further. When we have a clear champion like with that first test which increased conversion by over 80%, we test new alternatives in the hope that we can squeeze even higher conversion rates from the incoming traffic.

This time we tested a graphic element that was part of the call to action at the end of the video. The video was embedded next to a call to action button that said Subscribe in the panel to the right. In the first version (below on the left) we finished the video with a giant arrow on the player pointing towards the Subscribe button to reinforce the closing words of the video’s voiceover.

The competing version of the video went one stage further with a dynamic arrow shooting out of the confines of the video player and coming to rest right next to the Subscribe button (below on the right). The idea was to drag the viewers’ eyes as close as possible to the conversion goal for the page.

Whenever we run a new test for a site we always try to predict which way the test will go, but this one surprised us all. The arrow on the left that stayed within the player and gently insisted on directing attention to the Subscribe button converted at a significantly higher rate than the dynamic flying arrow that left the player.

There may be more tests to run for this kind of element that gleefully breaks the fourth wall of online video, but for now the “old school” version remains on top.

You Don't Need 300 Million Users To Make Money (... But It Helps!)

First of all, congratulations to young Mr. Zuckerberg and the rest of the team at Facebook. According to his blog post yesterday, the site now has over 300 million users. This is a remarkable feat by any standard and places Facebook firmly in the pantheon of internet gods. Given that the announcement about reaching 250 million users only came in July, we can see that Facebook continues to experience remarkable growth as it becomes an essential part of many people’s lives.

Perhaps even more importantly for Mr. Zuckerberg, he was able to announce that Facebook had finally become “cashflow positive”. An interesting choice of words that is open to interpretation as Alan Patrick of Broadsight amusingly points out on his blog. At least one thing is clear and that is whatever interpretation of “cashflow positive” Facebook uses for this past quarter, it is not likely to have made much of dent in the $700 million that has already been invested in the site.

So, if it takes one of the world’s most popular sites five years, 300 million users and $700 million of investment to make money, what hope is there for the rest of us? Plenty. And the reason is this. You don’t need 300 million users to make money. What you do need is a clear conversion strategy for the users or visitors you do have.

Facebook has built its user base with fantastic word of mouth and viral expansion through every demographic. The rest of us are using a combination of PPC, SEO and other SEM tactics to generate traffic to our properties. But even without a viral tsunami we can all still do more to optimize the value of the traffic we generate for our sites.

You may even find that your real online business is not an ad-supported behemoth like Facebook, but a lean and keen revenue-generating machine with a real product and an open and defined strategy for turning your visitors into purchasers or subscribers or downloaders. Facebook needed 300 million visitors in order to start making money. My bet is that you can achieve the same goal with far fewer.

Twitter Excels At B2B Marketing

Yesterday we launched our new Video Marketing Quiz. The idea was for us to find an engaging way to present the data we have captured from real traffic on real sites. Once we settled on the format our designers worked overtime putting together the Flash elements and creating a neat user experience that was informative without being preachy. I think they did a great job, but you can decide for yourself when you take the quiz.

The next part of the puzzle was how to get people to find out about and take the quiz. We were never looking to explode, just to build some awareness which would translate into extra traffic. We wanted to tap into the online community of marketers who could see the value of the quiz and introduce them to EyeView without trying to sell them anything.

At the same time we wanted to put into practice some of the things we have learned from reading and participating in marketing blogs and discussions over the past few months. First of all we wanted it to be Free. I devoured Chris Anderson’s book when it came out and while I don’t believe he suggested anything radical, I think he captured the essence of something important regardless of what Malcolm Gladwell says.

Second of all, we wanted to try out our new interpretation of doing business as a B2B company. Instead of a business negotiating with other businesses, we want to be individuals in a business talking to individuals at other companies. This sense of building and maintaining trust is something we have gleaned from our contacts in social media and specifically from the Titan of Trust, Chris Brogan.

In honor of our launch on the same day as Chris launched the book he wrote with Julien Smith, we chose to run a modest promotion on the book’s Facebook fanpage.

 

We thought it would be a nice idea to try to give away 50 copies of the book to anyone who completed the quiz and tweeted their score on Twitter. Things were ticking over nicely until this happened:

 

That’s when it all went crazy. I want to present some of the statistics we have gathered from the first 24 hours since the Video Marketing Quiz went public. The viral impact of several points in a network choosing to microblog our link on Twitter at around the same time meant that in the first 8 hours alone, over 3,000 people came and took the quiz. We have connected with marketers all over the world who want to know more about effective video for businesses. I sent copies of Trust Agents across the world to places as far flung as Canada, England, Brazil, India, Malaysia and Kentucky. There is truly a global marketplace for good writing and smart marketing.

So far it’s been a heck of a day. I’ll let you know when it eases up.

Video Marketing Quiz 2009

One of the benefits of working for a company that is committed to testing is that we never have to fall back on guesswork. When EyeView releases data about the impact video has on conversion, you can be sure that the data comes from real sites using real traffic. We don’t deal with suppositions, simulations or uncertainties. Instead, EyeView has a scientific approach to conversion optimization where every element is tested to prove its worth and every assumption examined to establish its authenticity.

The Video Marketing Quiz (VMQ), which you can find here, is the culmination of several weeks’ work to find an engaging way to present some of the data we have collected to the community of marketers. The quiz will test your instincts and help you understand effective use of video for businesses.

How do we distribute content in 2009?

Once we were sure the quiz could provide value, we looked for the medium that was best placed for sharing that value with the marketing community. Much has been written over the past few months about Twitter and its value for businesses. For the most part that value has been ascribed to consumer-facing (B2C) businesses like Zappos.com or Comcast who are leveraging Twitter to maintain relationships with their customers and establish their reputations as companies that care. On the surface our company is a classic business-facing (B2B) business, but we are discovering that the old B2B models aren’t as relevant anymore. B2B relationships aren’t about businesses communicating with other businesses, they are about individuals within a business talking with individuals working somewhere else. Twitter is the perfect tool for humanizing relationships, not just with consumers but with business partners, colleagues and peers.

We are launching this year’s VMQ using Twitter as our main communications medium backed up by Facebook and LinkedIn. We believe that a friend spreading the word to other friends is the most effective way to reach a broad group of people. As more people take the quiz and share the experience with their trusted network, we hope reach a wider audience and share our experience and add value to the community that provides value to us very day.

So, enjoy the quiz, share the quiz and thank you for everything that you share with us.

You can find us on Twitter here.

Your Video Elevator Pitch

It’s been a couple of months since I inadvertently coined the term ‘twelevator pitch’ in a comment on Brian Eisenberg’s blog. It’s the Twitter generation’s version of the elevator pitch. The idea is that every company should be able to explain what they do in a 140 character tweet.

Since then I’ve been think more about the idea and trying to define some rules for brevity and precision not just in 140 characters but in translating that pitch into an effective homepage video.

The added ingredient here is that a video on your homepage should serve a role beyond pure exposition. A homepage video is a key part of driving visitors to your conversion goal whether that goal is to capture an email address or to download a piece of installation software.

How do you build the perfect homepage video? It’s a combination of your elevator pitch, your company’s visual style and a clear call to action all delivered in around 70 seconds.

In other words:

• Say the right thing
• Show the right thing
• Ask for the right thing
• Get out in around a minute

I think this video that we made for TradeSmarter is a great example. The script clearly describes the purpose of the site while the visuals establish a tone that is fun, professional and welcoming. The call to action is delivered at the end with viewers encouraged to register on the site and the whole thing comes in under 65 seconds.

I'd love to get your suggestions for the most successful homepage videos that you've seen.